


No Hope of Dawn

by LeastExpected_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/F, Interspecies, Points of View, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-04
Updated: 2002-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26478574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeastExpected_Archivist/pseuds/LeastExpected_Archivist
Summary: By Pythoness.Arwen questions her choices and ponders upon mortality.
Relationships: Arwen Undómiel/Éowyn
Kudos: 6
Collections: Least Expected





	No Hope of Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Amy Fortuna, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Least Expected](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Least_Expected), which has been offline since 2002. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Least Expected collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/leastexpected/profile).
> 
> Disclaimer: This story was written for the amusement of myself and my friends. I do not wish to impinge upon the rights of Professor Tolkien or his heirs in any way.  
>  Feedback: Feedback is welcome.  
>  Story Notes: This is an AU that doesn't dovetail with my L/G stories.

There is an old, old woman hobbling along below my window. Her back is bent; her hair, white and thin now like the misty clouds that gather at dusk, is covered with warm wraps, and her maidens walk close beside her, to guide her doddering steps. There is a milky film over her eyes, and her limbs falter; she relies on younger sight and younger muscles to support her lest she fall. 

I used to watch her from my tower window as she rode out in the morning with sword and shield, her golden hair a cloud the color of a clear sunrise, and I rejoiced in her strength and freedom. 

When she grew heavy with child and laid aside her play at the art of war, then often I sat and spoke with her, and watched the lights play in her bold eyes, and on her hair, and on the smoothness of her skin. Her hands were long-fingered and strong, calloused yet deft; she did not take docilely to needlecraft, not she--she loved to ride and to spar, and to ease the pains and bind the wounds of those in need of strength and healing. But her body, for all its strength, rebelled against carrying its children, and she was barred from the stables and the Houses of Healing, lest she miscarry, banished to a quietude most alien to her nature. 

I laughed at her chafing, her clumsiness and impatience with quiet arts: she, more a warrior than many men of Gondor--she, a healer who did not quail from any horror of the body, knew no more of the arts of womanhood than many a callow girl! And she laughed with me, and was good-humored in her long confinements, though often I saw her attention drift out the window, where the boys ran races on their ponies, and the sun and the wind roamed free without Eowyn, long their companion. 

Yet in the art of pregnancy she was an eager pupil. She showed me once, innocent and without guile, how her body had changed--she pulled apart her robes to show me the sweetly swollen belly, and how a dark stripe showed dim along its median; the round, white breasts grown heavy; the darkened nipples; the little drop of milk. She pressed my hand to the silken warmth of her skin--*Here is his head,* she said in delight, and yet all I felt there was Eowyn--the life, the strength that flowed in her. When I looked in her eyes then she grew bewildered, and gathered her robes, and said no more. 

I have lived long in the Golden Wood, and long in my father's house, and I will never understand the mores of men. *My lady,* she said, when I touched her face, the skin golden with sun, and ran my fingers along the fine lines of her brow, her jaw, her lips both soft and firm. _My lady, I will not take from the King Elessar what is rightfully his. This is wrong, my lady, for I am not worthy, and I belong to another._

Belong to another--the Lady Eowyn, most self-possessed of women? Take the rights from the King, as if I were his throne, or his cup? I laughed a little bitterly, and spoke upon the matter no more, and, after a little time, we were friends once again. 

She has never ceased to love him. Perhaps her regard for me was truly only because of that love; she saw me as part of him, part of what she took to be his happiness--a tall queen with hair woven of nightfall, next to the stern king in whose eyes shone the stars. She rejoiced that we were content; it would have hurt her sorely had she understood I was lonely, that it was she who brought light into the long sad days. 

Oh, Estel! You are not as I expected, and all is not as I had hoped and believed it would be. Surely we love one another! And yet . . . Were you as surprised as I in our loneliness, each apart even when we were together? Did you seek the solace again of your kinsmen, and of Legolas, your friend, and forsake my happiness? 

Once you told me that the ways of the Dunedain are even as those of the elves, but that, while you cleaved to your kinsmen in play and affection, you would never defile yourself with the knowledge of a woman, even the most innocent, for my sake. I was touched; I thought it charming and naive. Silly, Estel, yet so pure-hearted! And so we were virgins, by our custom, when we were wed, and while we both had a little knowledge of men, you had none at all of women. 

I do not feel, even now, that you have known a woman--and so how can it be that I have truly had knowledge of a man? In my heart I am still a virgin; in my body I am cold and unmoved. How can it be, when once we grew breathless at one another's touch, when the clasp of a hand seemed a promise of joy that might never be broken? 

How can it be that our hearts are not moved when we lie together? Over and over I have wondered what part it is that is so cold, and why we can neither sleep nor speak, but must lie and nurse our bitter aches, each alone, yet in the same joyless bed? Is there no healing for our hearts? 

Do you speak of it to Legolas when you ride to Ithilien? Do you whisper it in the night, and take the healing of his body for the pain I cause, all unwilling? For I can smell him upon you, my Lord, when you return, and I do not care for the way he looks at me. Even if you do not speak of me, he knows that all is not well, and he blames me, even as you blame me. And how am I to answer, when none will voice the accusation? 

Who am I to seek my solace with? I am trapped as it were in this city. I cannot ride to Ithilien with my maidens, for if I did, who of the elves would wish to hear my tale? I am no longer one of them: I have made another choice. Legolas would not welcome me in his house, for he is the besotted servant of his king. I will not lie with the men of the household; coarse creatures, rough and hard, with whom I have naught in common. They would take me eagerly enough--to use me, to use that thing which belongs to the King--they would fancy themselves kings, knowing a queen, and in so doing would lie more with him than with me. The knife need not be twisted in the wound. 

Only once did I dare speak of my unhappiness to Eowyn, and even she would not listen: she grew angry that I dared be sorrowful, wedded to man she loves. She thought it folly, and told me to forget. Is it so evil that I find little comfort in my husband, and he in me? Is loneliness an outrage upon the reign of Elessar? 

Time rises to choke me. Where now are my brothers? They ride afar, and I do not know if they are still in the world. Where now is my father, when I would tell him of my sorrows, when I would beg his forgiveness for my folly, and feel again his arms around me, strong and loving? And oh, that I had not been so drunk with love as to make the choice never to see my mother again, or her mother! Oh Galadriel, is it so bleak? Can I truly never come home to you? 

And now the Lady Eowyn is passing from my sight. Slowly she hobbles away, old and broken, and the light is leaving her, and soon, very soon, I will never see her more. She has not spoken to me save to bow and croak _My Lady_ in many months--in long aching ages of my loneliness. She thinks she is not worthy, who once was my only friend--she thinks she is old and ugly, and that she will offend by her decay. 

Perhaps she is even jealous. Does she not still love King Elessar? Is he not still hale and straight, with the light of stars in his eyes? And am I not still the Queen with hair woven of nightfall, tall and white in the tower window, where once I waited her company? 

She carries away the light of the sun. This palace is my sepulchre. I see the hand of death upon the Lady Eowyn, I feel its grip upon my heart. There is a night which presses down upon me without the light of stars, without the warmth of life, or of love. 

I can feel already the chill of that night with no hope of dawn. I want to feel the warmth of the morning again. I want to come home. 

Father. I want to come home.


End file.
